Moving

Hello all! I know it has been more than a month, but things have been so crazy in other parts of my life I haven't had much time to even think about crafting. Along with the normal stress of the fall holidays, this year we bought a house, moved, and put our old place up for sale.

Spare moments at home have been spent unpacking, cleaning the old place, getting the new yard in some shape before winter hits, and getting used to the new routine. And of course now that I have hit the third trimester, just getting the normal things done takes more out of me than usual.

On the crafting front, most of my supplies have been packed away in boxes, but I have been steadily working on the baby blanket. It looks like it will be fairly long and narrow (as blankets go) but I'm definitely pleased with how it is coming out. It should be done this week or next week, depending on how much I nap and how much I knit on my commute.

Today though, I finally unpacked all of my yarn and fiber stash. I have some nice new plastic crates to keep things organized, and a shelf set up for my crafting books. Everything is in the closet of our new guest bedroom/library. Unfortunately, I can't show you any of it because I can't find the thing I use to transfer pictures to my computer (the hazards of moving).

Here is a nice picture of a sheep doll to make up for it:

Easy sheep doll, made circa 2006

Yarn and fiber is unpacked, but tools are mostly still in boxes. They are almost all in the right room, at least.

My main concern is that the new space I have for crafting storage is smaller than my old space. Our new place is a bit bigger, but one of the bedrooms has been designated the new baby's room. It is also the place with the litter boxes currently, so I don't want to store knitting things there if I don't have to. The guest room, which has the yarn and such, also has a lot of bookshelves, as well as being smaller than the old guest room.

The place does have a very large shed in the back yard that would be perfect... if it were at all climate controlled. I don't want to store fleeces in an airless, hot room if I can avoid it. We could add electricity, basic heating and cooling, and make it a perfect storage space or even playroom. But that is a project for the future, I am afraid.

Whelp, nothing to do but get crafting and try to work my way through the stash!

Craftivism?

I know I have not been updating this blog as much as I should, and I apologize. I have been having a bit of writer's block: so much is going on in my city, my country. Living in DC, we are really on the edges of the maelstrom: we know so many people who are deeply involved in politics and government, and there is a low-level anxiety to almost every interaction.

Hopefully, my federal job will not be part of the purges (but who knows when statistical agencies might become the enemy), and my husband is a federal contractor (defense is probably a safe industry), but we live in scary times. It is hard to just write about ordinary things.

So I guess I will compromise. I won't talk about ordinary things, I will talk about craftivism.

If you haven't heard the term, craftivism is putting your time and effort into works of art for a cause. A well-known example is the AIDS memorial quilt, which powerfully brought visibility to the AIDS epidemic in the United States.

What is the appeal of craftivism? Most obviously, it is fun - people like crafting, and they like having a reason to craft. But there are other benefits. People spend hours crafting - and hours thinking about the cause, whatever it is. They often come together to craft, and those sewing circles or stitch and bitch sessions can be places to plan and organize political or social movements. There are other benefits to the movements as well - art grabs people's attention, especially coordinated art.

Which brings us to today's most noticeable instance of craftivism: the pussy hat project.

Me and fellow marchers wearing pussy hats on Jan 21. I made the three on the left.

If you hadn't heard of the project, it was an effort to get knitters, crocheters, and sewers from across the country, whether they were going to a Women's March or not, to contribute by making a pink hat for a marcher to wear. Many of the hats had "pussy" ears, in a sideways reference to the President's disparaging remarks. This project demonstrates one of the most powerful parts of craftivism - craftivism can convey a sense of magnitude even beyond the sheer numbers of people marching.

Marchers on Independence Avenue in DC, about 2 pm Jan 21st

Not only are all of these women and men marching for women's rights, but they have a common dress code. The hats are pink, but not just one shade of pink, because most were handmade by a marcher or a friend. The hours of crafting to make hundreds of thousands of unique hats is overwhelming, and sends a powerful message. Pictures taken at any of the US marches are unmistakable, because of the ubiquitous pink hats with cat ears.

Now, this is a crafting blog, so I should talk about the three hats I made.

I saw this as the perfect opportunity to use up that hideous pink yarn that was gifted to me a decade ago. I don't really like flamboyant clothing, so I really had nothing to make with it until now. But marches are for wearing eye-catching things, so the yarn was perfect. Plus, I didn't have much pink yarn, as I'm not usually a fan of the color.

My first hat was made almost entirely with the eyelash yarn, and is pretty eye-catching.

Pussy Hat #1

I held the yarn double, and knitted it in the round. I used a pale pink wool from my stash for the ears (I used intarsia techniques) and finished it off with kitchener stitch: no decreasing required. The yarn was pretty annoying to work with (it was nearly impossible to see what the previous stitch was, or even count my stitches) but I definitely got a lot of attention working with it on my metro commute!

Hats 2 and 3 were more normal. I didn't have much left of the eyelash yarn, so I just used it for a bottom border.

Pussy hats #2 and #3

I used similar techniques for these hats, but smaller needles. I pretty much used up all of my pink yarn, which is why I also used some of the lavender alpaca yarn from North Light Fibers (it actually looks mauve when it isn't contrasted with the pink).

My husband wearing one of my pussy hats at the march

I found making the pussy hats to be more meaningful than I expected. I started with the idea that I would just make one to use up some of my pink yarn. But there was something pretty powerful about knitting for a larger purpose, and I became somewhat addicted to looking at pictures of the hats that others had made. My local yarn shop had knitting circles to make them. It was an important part of the march for me.

As an aside, I also wanted to show off my latest purchase. This is also tangentially related to craftivism though. I follow a group called The Yarn Mission on Twitter, mostly for the pretty pictures of knitwear that they post. But they are a craftivism group for black liberation. I recently bought some fiber from them:

Hand-Dyed roving from The Yarn Mission. Sandy decided that he wanted to be in the picture.

I love that the colors utilize a traditionally African American color palette. The only thing that I am worried about is that it was advertised as good for "spinning and felting". Usually, if it is good for felting, it is not good for spinning. I guess I will see when I spin it up.

The Long and the Short of It

Which are better, long projects or short ones?

Long projects seem like they don't progress. You never have anything new to say about them:

"how is the sweater doing?"
"Fine, added another two inches this week."

They require a lot of advance planning at the beginning, then just stitching. And stitching. And stitching.

But... the payoff at the end is amazing. You can look at whatever it is and say, "I made that." It is the most gratifying feeling in the world.

With short projects, a larger part of them is the fun planning stages, and less is the relaxing stitching stages.

There is nearly instant gratification, though smaller.

They are easier to carry around.

And, there is more progress to share!

So, what do y'all think? Short or long?

One Thing Leads to Another

Knitting is mainstream, spinning is unusual.

You can find usable yarn in any craft store, and yarn shops with high-quality yarn in every city.

As a knitter, there was little push to buy new tools and try new crafts. Sure, I would go out and buy a different size of needle, and I bought a set of t-pins when I started doing lace. One project required that I do a crochet border. But I never felt deprived because I didn't have a spindle. Fantastic yarn was all around.

It helped that I usually bought plain-colored, worsted-weight wool yarn (now that I spin, I try to avoid buying yarn, since it is piling up so fast). That stuff is versatile and interchangeable. With it, I can make almost anything I want to wear or use, and if there is something else, I can buy a batch of yarn special.

But now that I spin...

At first, I thought that I would just buy some roving and spin away. All I would need is a drop spindle. But I went to my local festival and fell in love with some dyed locks.

Dyed locks

Suddenly, I needed hand carders if I wanted to work with them. And then I read that the best way to get out the little bits of grass in the locks was to get a flick carder. And then it turned out that the staple-length was too long for carders to work easily, so I needed combs.

Suddenly, my tools were multiplying like never before. And that is even before I accidentally bought a pound of unwashed wool.

And it wasn't just my tools that were multiplying. All I wanted was to spin yarn, and I found myself carding, combing, flicking, and washing.

I think it is because of where I got my roving. Because it is not carried in most craft stores, I had to go to the festival. And while there was roving (and top) there was also more soft and beautiful wool that was just waiting to be turned in to yarn with just a little more work.

I am resisting the final step, however. I had been very careful to try to always get colored wool, either dyed or naturally some other color.

And then I was given pounds and pounds of white wool. I am making a shawl, but what am I going to do with the rest?

I don't think I can avoid dyeing forever, but we will see.